Impulse
by SkippingThrough
Summary: The magazines never show how the years have worn her down. / After her parents' deaths, Misa Amane's greatest ambitions land somewhere between justice and leaving behind a beautiful corpse. Until Light Yagami enters the picture.


"Your heart is your greatest asset. Your beauty comes second."

Misa bobs her head, cornsilk bangs falling into her face. There is ambition in her eyes. Promise, even as a child.

"I know, mom."

Her mother - Amelia Koskinen, now legally Kendra Wilson - hugs her daughter close to her chest. Tears trickle down her face. She burrows her face into the crook of Misa's neck, hiding the rain dotting the window of the airport terminal from view. It drips downward in steady rivulets, blurring the cornucopia of airline logos on the grounded planes.

The pitter-patter noise is masked by rolling suitcases and conversation.

Blonde tendrils tickle Kendra's cheeks and she smiles, unseen, as Misa squeezes her tighter. Misa had inherited her blonde hair and her father's eyes. Every time Kendra looks at Misa's face, she can see the shape of his eyes reflected back at her.

The perfect combination of both of her parents.

Kendra's mother, a stately old woman with good breeding steeped into the fine wrinkles of her skin like the creases of a pantsuit, had always told her that a lifetime of good decisions can all be undone by one mistake.

"Watch yourself, Amelia. God does not forgive your mistakes and neither do I. Every corner holds another sin clothed in temptation."

"I understand, mother." She would nod her head and smile, bright white teeth glinting in the chandelier light.

Kendra understands now, why her mother would always warn her to exercise caution and common sense. The past four years have shown her that her mother's paranoia was more than justified.

Once, fresh from her lengthy hospital stay with an infant in hand, Kendra had promised herself she would never regret her decision to have Misa. Now, she was coming dangerously close to turning her back on that promise.

"I love you. I'll see you soon. I promise." She chokes a little on her last word.

_Promise._

Misa can't understand what's happening. Some small, dark part of Kendra is glad she won't be around for the tantrum that will ensue when she does.

"Are you ready, ma'am?"

The Japanese woman acting as Misa's escort brushes a strand of hair away from her face. Her demeanor is clean and professional. Kendra wonders how many tearful separations she's seen that mirror this one.

_A clean break. That's what I need._

She lets the escort take Misa's hand and lead her into the plane. She doesn't look back.

.

.

.

Misa Amane had been born beautiful.

Her mother sits her down on her lap, shows her photographs, and gushes. She flips through the pages of her scrapbook turning the colors into a blur of yellow on white on red.

A shot of Misa as a baby, cherubic face grinning. She is in the hands of her adoring father, 9-5 business man Kenshiro Amane. No other family, but a family man all the same. Kenshiro had once balanced out Kendra's bubbly nature and friendly, outgoing smile with his serious demeanor.

In the photo, the wrinkles in his forehead disappear and his smile is adoring as he looks at baby Misa.

"Who's that?" Misa shouts excitedly and jabs her finger at the photograph.

"That's your daddy!" Kendra giggles. "Isn't he so handsome? And look at you, Misa-Misa! You were so little."

"That can't have been me, mommy!" Misa protests. "She's so small. I'm not that small!"

Kendra giggles. The cherry headband on Misa's head slides forward with the vibrations.

She flips the page. In the next photo, Misa sees herself as a toddler, age three. She is waving around a doll (_"Pretty things for pretty girls,"_ her mother trills) and looking at the camera with a grin.

(Years later, she will look at the same photograph and see her mother in that smile. She will crumble up the photograph and toss it with deliberate carelessness into the trashcan in the corner of her bedroom. But she can't avoid the mirror forever.)

"Look at that smile!" Kendra cheers.

These photographs capture happy moments. All her life, Misa has gravitated toward the camera.

She is star material in a bottle. Cherubic, adorable, picture perfect in all the ways that glossy magazine pages soak up. A camera flashes in the distance and her future is spelled out in billboards.

.

.

.

But that's the life she left behind in England. In Japan, few recognize Misa as more than an adorable nuisance that doesn't belong.

Foreignness clings to her for like plastic wrap. It is inextricably a part of her, like a second skin that Misa cannot shed.

She is defined by it from the moment she lands at the Tokyo Airport. Her hands shake with nerves and she wants her mother, but the woman escorting her (_"Call me Tachibana-san, please."_) leads her forward.

Misa is overwhelmed by the words she cannot understand and the symbols that suround her. Life in Tokyo is busy, always hurtling forward at a differnt speed from the steady pace that Misa was used to within her mother's estate.

Tachibana-san leads her into a building with drab grey hallways and ugly carpeting. Inside sits a man she's only ever seen in photographs.

His brunette hair has shades of grey creeping into the edges. The circles beneath his eyes remind Misa of her mother's.

She knows who this man is before Tachibana-san introduces him.

"Amane-san, eet your daughter."

She stares. He stoops down to pick her up and holds onto her tightly, like he can't bear to ever let her go.

"Let's go home, Misa-chan," He sounds as if he relishes saying her name. Like something has finally clicked into place. "Your mother is waiting to meet you."

Misa gasps happily and lets herself be pulled into another hug before pulling away in impatience.

"Let's go, let's go! I wanna see her!"

_Mom is here!_

For a blissful moment, she forgets that she is surrounded by foreignness, in a country where she can't understand the language or the culture. Her blonde hair stands out like a beacon, but right now, Misa's smile is all the more blinding.


End file.
